Credit unions can be easy to overlook and underestimate individually they generally dont have a massive amount of assets their membership bases are often pretty small and more localized and on average their rate of credit card penetration among members is pretty small 15 to 17 percent on average But as PSCU President and CEO Chuck Fagan told Karen Webster in a recent conversation looks can often be deceiving when it comes to credit unions because while they may be small alone in aggregate they pack quite a punch As of today there are over 5 000 credit unions in the US collectively representing 100 million members and holding over a trillion dollars in assets Moreover while big banks tend to generate customer complaints more easily than they generate customer praise and enthusiasm credit union members seem to genuinely like banking with them According to a recent iteration of the PYMNTS Credit Union Tracker 81 percent of credit union members report being highly satisfied with their services Satisfaction stems from the fact that credit unions have a reputation for being less expensive less complicated to deal with and delivering a higher touch level of service than their larger bank counterparts The challenge Fagan noted is keeping up that high level of consumer satisfaction in the digital age as consumers now expect a certain level of service when it comes to mobile banking payments and loyalty or security The expectations are high he said and the margins for error are slim Individually most credit unions simply arent equipped to take on the challenge of building out modern digital infrastructures to support those offerings PSCU works with credit unions individually and as a collective network with an emphasis on bringing forward leading-edge technologies solutions and programs that optimize credit union operations Today Fagan noted they support over 900 credit unions and their collective 43 million members with a focus on not just building for those members but building solutions with them The Member Experience What consumers like about using credit unions as opposed to big banks is that the service seems more personalized to meet their needs Servicing credit unions Fagan told Webster means that PSCU needs to take that relationship and that set of needs as seriously as the credit union itself does because that relationship is quite literally everything The trick he said is staying on top of and even ahead of members upcoming needs not just todays needs By way of example he noted that in the 90s gold cards became a favored way of signaling a credit offerings premium nature and credit unions wanted to offer them The difficulty at the time was that to offer a gold card financial institutions had to offer 24 7 customer support to go with it something that individual credit unions didnt really have the capacity to do PSCU offered a solution for the aggregate so that via a call center servicing a myriad of credit unions they could offer the right support for gold cards However Fagan noted by the early aughts the world had already changed a bit As members were able to access their card information online we saw a dip in call volume he said But because the investment made by the credit union owners of PSCU in the call centers was already there the question is how can we use them So we expanded out from the base as a card service call center to a call-in hub for full-service calls across accounts To support that PSCU deployed technology so they could provide a full-spectrum full-service solution that could access a members checking savings and loan products as well as their cards As PSCU works to build for credit unions needs going forward their advantage is their proximity to the industry they are owned by credit unions and every member of the board is a CEO of one Moreover Fagan noted as a regular feature of their product development efforts PSCU makes it a point to be consistently in the branches of the credit unions they service When we are developing and rolling out new products we are sitting in the branch department because we need to get a clear picture of a day in the life of people who use our systems Fagan said That allows them access to where the pain points are where the demand is and where the needs are They also critically point the way to places where education and training are needed for workers so that the shiny tools they build go into the hands of people who understand them and are prepared to use them Training Fagan noted is often an area that sits on the funding chopping block because the payout from the investment isnt always as obvious But the tools dont matter not to the credit unions or to their members if no one can use them or staff doesnt know how to promote them he stated For every technological upgrade there is a very human element that can get overlooked even though it is critical It cant just be working in theory it has to work in our 900 credit unions The Power of the Network With nearly a thousand credit unions representing over 40 million members PSCU has something that one generally wouldnt associate with the smaller institutions they work with data Troves of it knowledge generated across the network and the 23 billion transactions that PSCU sees each year and the 45 billion they are expecting their annual transaction rate to reach within the next two years as a result of their new partnership with core banking provider Jack Henry And that data Fagan noted is extremely useful in a variety of contexts like fraud mitigation Their systems can spot fraud in a single instance such as a user trying to break into the system with stolen credentials The fraud detection system obviously needs to first stop the attempted break-in at that single touchpoint But PSCU fraud detection is also designed to think bigger once fraud is found at one touchpoint the artificial intelligence AI is now turned loose across that network to see where similar fraud is being attempted and why Fraud Fagan noted is complicated one might be looking at an account takeover or at a fraudster attempting to access a reward system and do some points looting The options for fraudsters are always expanding he noted as securing a network means using the right analytics tools to see the whole picture not just every attempted break-in as a one-off event And when we look at the data and information we really understand our partners a lot better across channels Fagan said We want to be able to position credit unions with the right products across all channels so they can build those cutting-edge user experiences and really best position the credit union for continued growth Whats Next When it comes to whats next Fagan noted PSCU is doing what they usually do going back to the drawing board to figure out how to build out and roll out the next round of tools and enhancements for credit unions Security and fraud he noted is a particular area of concern because the arms race in that area is ongoing If you dont think the cybercriminals arent also using AI that is a huge error This is always going to be a game about staying maybe a step ahead More broadly he noted they are working with their credit unions to embrace coming and emerging technology particularly when it comes to payments That is partly an education effort Fagan noted and partly an effort in bolstering confidence among members The goal he stated is to train credit union workers so well in payments that they are able to go to a member and talk about contactless and other advances that communicate it is going to be a factor in their lives and that this is good news not bad news The real key Fagan said is collaborating with credit unions and focusing the technological offerings around what they need based on their own reporting I am a big believer in a sign I saw on someones desk If you build it they might come but if you build it with them they are already there he said noting that getting everyone already there and on the same page is critical But its also only a first step and the next one figuring out where to go next isnt easy